In case you’re finding out this, you most likely already hate plastic bottles. I imagine by this stage even these of us who aren’t notably environmentally acutely conscious have seen the images of seashores coated in litter and animals with stomachs full of the stuff. It’s disgusting, it’s upsetting and it’s irritating. Nonetheless the good news is that, a minimal of for some plastics, there are actually truly simple choices to decrease how a variety of this supplies we stock into the world. Certainly one of many best points that’s moreover the best to change? Bottled water.
Bottled water is a fairly newest phenomenon, and people have been surviving on faucet water sooner than bottles merely great. Bottled water was truly invented by massive enterprise throughout the Seventies, and tap water is normally greater top quality and performs greater in blind fashion testing. At current Britain consumes spherical 3 billion litres of bottled water per 12 months, and most of those bottles are made with virgin (not recycled) plastic. London buys basically essentially the most of all, spending a median of 7.7bn a 12 months on the stuff in its place of merely getting it from home for practically nothing.
Nonetheless now there’s a advertising marketing campaign to change points, and it needs your assist.
I spoke to Will from the Water For London advertising marketing campaign to review additional about this very important state of affairs, and what they should see carried out. Their goal is to see a group of ingesting fountains and refillable water stations put in all through the entire Transport for London group, in order that people can refill their very personal bottles from home on the go, and we are going to all get considerably nearer to zero waste dwelling.
How did the advertising marketing campaign start?
I started the advertising marketing campaign in September closing 12 months – I had the privilege of spending the sooner 12 months on a career break; I visited various places, met nice people, and tried various new experiences. Sadly there was one not so constructive issue that I witnessed nearly in every single place on my travels: plastic bottle waste. From the seashores of Costa Rica, the reefs of the Caribbean, the Islands of Greece, the mountains of Poland and the streets of cities I visited.
Working in sustainability for the ultimate 10 years, I’d been aware of the issues from afar, however coming face-to-face with the ocean plastic state of affairs turned very visceral and created a passion to take movement and harness that vitality to behave in a constructive method to do one factor about it.
Moreover on my my travels I observed freely and accessible water refill stations and fountains all through assorted cities – places to refill my bottle that bought right here with me in every single place on my travels. Airports, bus and observe stations, parks, public squares… most people provision and visual nature appeared to normalise a refill custom and people had an obvious place to entry free faucet water whereas on the go.
I believed why doesn’t London have this? What do commuters, vacationers, those who work, dwell and play in London do for water on the go?
Evaluation confirmed my concepts and refined my pondering – that there is at current no water provision at any TfL or observe stations, and thirsty people have to purchase pricey water in single-use plastic bottles. The choices have been non-existent. After further evaluation a petition was born specializing in the Mayor of London and Transport for London to place in bottle refill stations at every tube, observe, tram, bus and boat station they perform so people in London have some to go to get water with out the plastic.
How is the advertising marketing campaign going?
The advertising marketing campaign quickly gathered momentum, forging hyperlinks with SumofUs that helped get the message out to their supporters. Shortly quite a few associates and supporters wished to grow to be concerned someway, to contribute and help push for the arrange of the water refill components. From there we formed a volunteer group that meet month-to-month to help coordinate the advertising marketing campaign actions.
Our regular actions are:
- Establishing public assist to help assemble stress on the Mayor of London by way of the petitions and social media (website online on its means)
- Establishing a coalition of supporters
- Instantly partaking the Mayor, the GLA, TfL and Thames Water to encourage them to satisfy our advertising marketing campaign asks (and break down the obstacles they put up)
At current, the advertising marketing campaign petitions have 17.5k signatures all through the 2 platforms and never too way back it seems to be as if the Mayor has been listening to most people assist as he launched the good news {{that a}} pilot scheme of refill stations will doubtless be starting this summer season.
We’re treating this as partial success. It’s good news nonetheless we have to push the Mayor to go further than the 20 fountains launched. There are over 500 tube, observe, bus, tram and Thames Clipper stations operated by TfL, all with various entrances!
Although it’s a start, 20 fountains is similar as roughly one fountain per 500 thousand people, which is one heck of a disparity (I can already take into consideration the nightmare queues). So now it is as a lot as us to take care of the momentum going, and hopefully we are going to rid London of pointless bottled water.
For now, the primary focus is on persevering with to up the stress on TfL because of the additional those who want it, the extra sturdy it is to refuse.
On excessive of that, make sure to observe Water For London on social media, the place chances are you’ll be saved up to date with the newest developments.
